ALOE BLACC
Former business strategy consultant turned dapper soul revivalist, California native Aloe Blacc had a part-time stint in a rap duo before releasing his debut album 'Shine Through' through Stones Throw Records in 2006. Second LP 'Good Things' was picked up by Epic last year, following the breakout success of Aloe's recession era classic 'I Need A Dollar', which had its proper release a few days ago. With a handful of UK live dates just gone, Aloe will return to our fair isle in the summer for appearances at the Glastonbury, Somerset House Series and Big Chill festivals.

As he kicks back in The Netherlands ahead of a show in Zwolle tonight, Aloe was kind enough to offer a Same Six-style insight into the process he underwent while making his new album.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I started in high school, making hip-hop with my good friend DJ Exile. We started a hip hop group called Emanon, which is "no name" backwards, and we recorded everything on our own with a four-track cassette recorder, a push-button sampler, and old records that we sampled from. I wrote the lyrics, he made the beats: we became local heroes, and eventually spread our music around the world.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Lyrically, the financial crisis and the recession were the inspiration. Stylistically, late 60s/early 70s political and social soul music: artists such as Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
A lot of songs start as just the chorus and the melody; the idea will come to me when I'm driving or cooking, or some other everyday activity. Over a series of weeks I'll continue to write lyrics and add parts of the song in my mind, and build the orchestration. Eventually I'll get to the studio with my musicians, and have a demo already created for them to record their parts. Or, like James Brown, I'll hum each musician their part, and we'll go from there.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
My current work is influenced by Al Green, Bill Withers and Marvin Gaye; or James Brown and Otis Reading. In general, I'm influenced by people like Cat Stevens, Jon Mitchell and a whole host of classic singer and songwriters.

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
I'd rather just shut up and let them hear it. But I'd hope that after they listen to the album that they go and listen to my inspirations as well.

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album and the future?
I'd like my album, 'Good Things', to have a bigger life through the help of things like labels and radio: I feel like it's a solid album, and worthy of people's attention. In the future, I'd like to try to keep expanding the concept of soul music, introducing other sounds and styles, but using soul as a foundation.

EMA
In the run up to this year's Great Escape, which takes place in venues across Brighton from 12-14 May, we'll be previewing some of our favourite artists who are playing the festival this year.

And today it's EMA, full name Erika M Anderson, who made the move from South Dakota to LA aged eighteen, making her first footsteps into the music world with alt-rockers Amps For Christ and releasing a 2007 album with drone-folk pairing Gowns before electing to go solo. Not doing things by halves, she set critics agog earlier this year with seven-minute album taster 'The Grey Ship', followed by 'California', which she describes as a "noised-out rap ballad".

Released on 9 May through Souterrain Transmissions, EMA's debut album 'Past Life Martyred Saints' incorporates her grassroots blues influences with a loose, instinctive songwriting style that's all husky vocals and lapping tides of distortion. As well as gigs in London and Manchester next week, she'll be appearing at The Great Escape on the NME Radar Stage at Horatio's on Brighton Pier on 14 May, where fingers crossed she'll also roll out her brilliant cover of Danzig's 'Soul On Fire'.

To get into this show, plus all the other hundreds of panels, sessions, parties and gigs taking place at The Great Escape this year, get your delegates pass from escapegreat.com.

GIGSELL, SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR (LONDON)
GigSell is a start-up company that has developed a unique platform for selling event tickets through Facebook. Our initial targets for the system are club events and concerts but the application will be tailored for other sectors. The technology is proven and the company is funded for launching the system.

GigSell want a proven sales and marketing professional who can lead the launch and sale of the ticketing platform. The approach will be to sell directly to significant event organisers, venues, promoters and marketing agencies but also to organise a network of sales people who target smaller and regional opportunities.

You must have significant experience of entertainment marketing and a track record of successful sales and promotion. You must have an enthusiasm for the web and a good understanding of social media and digital marketing. You should also have a strong network of relevant industry contacts.

We are offering a good salary plus a straight forward performance bonus scheme. We want an energetic, entrepreneurial marketer that can take a fantastic technical solution and turn it into a commercially successful business.

"The best music business training event I have attended; relevant and up to date, your knowledge of and enthusiasm for the industry is simply exceptional" from delegate feedbackWe are currently taking bookings for the following CMU TRAINING courses:

MUSIC RIGHTS – INSIDE & OUT A beginner's guide to music copyright – everything you need to know about copyright law, licensing, monetising copyright, the fight against piracy and the future of the music rights industry. Wed 18 May 2011

PROMOTING MUSIC - MEDIA, SOCIAL MEDIA AND MORE
How to build a profile for your artists - the state of the music media, traditional and new publicity techniques, social media and the future of music PR. Wed 1 Jun 2011

WARNER BOARD CONSIDERING FINAL BIDS
So, if the rumours are to be believed, and why not, let's believe them, the board of the Warner Music Group are considering three maybe four final bids to buy their company, with the intent to make a decision of which takeover to back by the end of the week. So that's tomorrow.

As much previously reported, Warner put itself up for sale at the start of the year. Initially the company was accepting offers for either some or all of the music major, but in the end decided to only consider those bids to buy the whole company outright. It is widely thought that the two lead contenders are similar bids in the region of three billion dollars from Len Blavatnik's Access Industries and the Gores brothers.

According to Reuters, a consortium involving Sony Music is also on the final shortlist (it's not clear whether that's one offer, or possibly two offers, one involving Sony's record company, the other Sony's music publishing company). Though there will be concerns that any deal that majorly increases the size of Sony Music might interest competition regulators, delaying any actual sale going through.

Sources have told Reuters that Warner directors hope to tell the final bidders their decision by end of play Friday. Assuming they do, and there are no complications as the takeover deal goes through the motions, most attention will then switch to the upcoming sale of EMI.

You might think that if Len Blavatnik gets Warner that leaves EMI for the Gores, though some reckon whoever is victorious in the Warner deal might then try to swoop and buy EMI as well. While there will be biggish regulatory hurdles to get over to merge the Warner and EMI businesses, the costs saving would be significant, and some in both record industry and City circles reckon a combined EMI Warner is an inevitability that has just been a very long time coming.

SONY SAYS ANONYMOUS ATTACK CONTRIBUTED TOWARDS DATA BREACH
Sony Corp yesterday blamed the online community Anonymous for last month's data breach in which the personal information of over 100 million users of the PlayStation Network and Qriocity content-on-demand service was stolen. As previously reported, Sony admitted last week that the reason both services had gone offline somewhat suddenly the previous week was because of a major hack that had resulted in the theft of significant amounts of user data, likely including credit card information.

Sony isn't saying that members of the Anonymous network stole the data, but that the online pressure group was staging one of those tedious Distributed Denial Of Service attacks against the Sony immediately before the big hack, and that it was because the company's IT dudes were dealing with the DDoS attack that the data grab was able to happen through the back door.

It made the claim that Anonymous contributed towards the data breach in a letter to Congress yesterday, as the entertainment and electronics giant faces questions from US political types regarding its security systems and response to the data hack. Anonymous subsequently issued a lengthy statement admitting they were attacking Sony's servers in the run up to the data grab, but added that as a group they has never been involved in credit card theft. They then waffled on for a while about how Sony and the FBI are evil, while everyone involved with Anonymous is brillz skillz.

Aside for the reputation hit Sony has taken as a result of the data hack, and the loss in revenues caused by having to take its networks down for over a week, the conglom may face greater costs if the data theft results in credit card fraud. One American web security analyst, Michael Pachter, told Billboard that Sony should have emailed all the users of its networks by now promising to indemnify them against any financial harm resulting from the data breach.

It's a viewpoint that is likely to be supported by some in US Congress, meaning the pressure will only mount on Sony in the coming days to step up its response to the big hack.

LIMEWIRE JUDGE RULES ON SOME PRE-TRIAL MOTIONS
So, the final chapter of the LimeWire litigation is slowly getting underway. As previously reported, with Judge Kimba Wood ruling last year that the digital firm was liable for contributory copyright infringement by providing millions of naughty file-sharers with the technology to access illegal sources of music, now a jury must decide how much damages the former Lime Group must pay the record companies. The labels want billions.

So far Wood has ruled on some pre-trial motions. First, she said that LimeWire founder Mark Gorton and all his business entities are liable for copyright infringement, so that he himself and any other companies he set up will also be liable to pay any damages awarded to the rights owners. The record companies have argued that Gorton deliberately set up his company and finances in a confusing way in a bid to shield him from liability in any inevitable copyright litigation.

Second, Wood has told LimeWire's legal men that one of their witnesses, damages expert George Strong, will not be allowed to deliver his entire testimony. Strong planned to tell the court that the link between file-sharing and slumping record sales in the last ten years was not proven, and that there is evidence that file-sharing can lead to an increase in record sales, ie the 'file-sharing is basically a preview service' argument. However Wood ruled that Strong was not an expert on either the music or technology industries, and that he hadn't undertaken any of his own research regards file-sharing, so won't be allowed to make such sweeping statements in court.

So, things do seem to be leaning in the record companies favour so far. The case continues.

CNET SUED FOR DISTRIBUTING LIMEWIRE
Given the actual LimeWire case is taking a little while to get going, of more interest today is possibly a new lawsuit filed by film producer Alki David, who also runs online TV-on-demand service FilmOn.com. He has sued tech website CNET and its publisher CBS Interactive for copyright infringement on the basis they were the "main distributor" of the LimeWire software.

CNET has always had a section on its site where users can download free software, or free previews of premium software, and among the packages offered over the years have been various P2P technologies, including LimeWire.

According to Billboard, David says: "CBS Interactive and CNET have acted as the main distributor of LimeWire software and have promoted this and other P2P systems to profit from wide-scale copyright infringement". The lawsuit reckons LimeWire was downloaded 220 million times from CNET since 2008, and that that amounts to 95% of the software's distribution in that time.

Although holding the distributor of technology used to make illegal copies of copyrighted content liable for contributory infringement isn't without precedent, a case like this would be pushing the boundaries of such infringement somewhat, but it would be interesting to see what would happen if the case got to court.

For its part, CBS has accused David of launching this litigation out of spite, after it and some other media companies won a copyright injunction against one of the film producer's companies last year.

In a statement issued to Billboard, a CBS Interactive spokesman said: "CBS and a host of other media companies were awarded a court ordered injunction against one of Alki David's companies last year with respect to that company's improper use of copyrighted content. This latest move by Mr David is a desperate attempt to distract copyright holders like us from continuing our rightful claims. His lawsuit against CBS affiliates is riddled with inaccuracies, and we are confident that we will prevail, just as we did in the injunction hearing involving his company".

DECEMBERISTS KEYBOARD PLAYER DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER
The Decemberists' keyboard player Jenny Conlee has been diagnosed with breast cancer, the band have announced. As a result, she will not join them on their remaining tour dates in May and June.

Frontman Colin Melloy told fans: "The good news is that Jenny caught it early. Though, while the prognosis is very, very good for a full recovery, tackling the disease will mean some intensive treatment for our Jenny as well as a lot of important recovery time".

Conlee herself, said: "I am very sorry to say that I will be missing a few shows coming up as I go through treatment for breast cancer. It has been great to be on tour these past few weeks. The band and crew are like family to me and have been incredibly supportive and understanding. To be making music with everyone and seeing the fans has helped me to feel more positive and keep my mind off of my diagnosis. But, alas, as the tour winds down, it is time for me to get back to reality. I will try to get into surgery as soon as I can after we return from this leg of the tour so I can begin my recovery. There are still a few unknowns out there concerning my cancer, but I am thinking positive and hope to be back on the road soon".

KERRANG! AWARDS NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED
The nominations for this year's Kerrang! Awards, which will also mark the 30th anniversary of the magazine's initial publication as a pull-out supplement of Sounds, have been announced.

Leading the pack this year are My Chemical Romance, with five nods. The band sang the following statement to us in beautiful four part barbershop-style harmony: "The UK has always been one of our favourite places to play as band, and we are so grateful for these nominations and the continued support from Kerrang!, it's readers and our fans. Thank you for the recognition and we hope to see you this summer".

Kerrang!'s Deputy Editor Daniel J Lane then barked while accompanying himself on the spoons: "The competition is really hotting up! It's been an amazing year for our music and it's really exciting to see such a diverse range of bands nominated for this year's K! Awards. I personally love the fact that our very own home-grown heroes Bullet For My Valentine, Bring Me The Horizon and The Blackout are going head-to-head with US heavyweights like My Chemical Romance, 30 Seconds To Mars and Avenged Sevenfold. But, as ever, it's up to the Kerrang! readers to decide who gets to walk away with one of our coveted K! trophies on the night".

The ceremony will take place on 9 Jun in London. This year's winner of the Kerrang! Legend Award, Oswold Osbourne, will also headline a special 30th anniversary show at the Hammersmith Apollo on 21 Jun.

Best Video: 30 Seconds To Mars - Hurricane, My Chemical Romance - Na Na Na, The Blackout - Higher And Higher, A Day To Remember - All I Want, Young Guns - Stitches

Best Live Band: Avenged Sevenfold, Bullet For My Valentine, 30 Seconds To Mars, My Chemical Romance, All Time Low

Best Album: Bring Me The Horizon - There Is A Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let's Keep It A Secret, Escape The Fate - Escape The Fate, The Blackout - Hope, Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare, My Chemical Romance - Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys

Best British Band: Bullet For My Valentine, Bring Me The Horizon, You Me At Six, The Blackout, Enter Shikari

Best International Band: 30 Seconds To Mars, Paramore, Avenged Sevenfold, My Chemical Romance, All Time Low

MUSIC'S RICHEST ANNOUNCED
The Sunday Times has published its annual list of the richest people in the UK music industry, which, as usual, is chock full of moguls and aging musicians. Also as usual, the top ten is made up entirely of men.

Co-founder of the Zomba Group, Clive Calder - who made his fortune by selling the Zomba/Jive labels to BMG for mega-bucks before record industry gloom started to set in - tops the list, thanks to his shrewd strategy of not using his £1.3billion fortune to buy another major music company, despite that often being rumoured.

And at the other end of the top ten, Simon Cowell makes his first appearance, climbing up from number eleven last year. The jump comes as he amassed an extra £35 million in the last twelve months.

At number twelve in the list are David and Victoria Beckham, neither of whom are involved in music as far as I remember. Also lumped together are George Harrison's widow Olivia and son Dhani, who replace Simon Cowell at eleven, Barry and Robin Gibb and 21, and Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne at 24. You'll find only two women in the top 50, 'Mamma Mia!' producer Judy Cramer at 38 and Kylie Minogue at 47.

The list of young music millionaires is far less male-dominated, topped this year by Katherine Jenkins, who ousts last year's joint richest music industry figures under 30 years old: Leona Lewis and Charlotte Church. Lewis is now joint second with Cheryl Cole and Katie Melua, while Church is down to six.

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE RECORDING NOTHING
Hey, you remember last year when Rage Against The Machine said they were recording a new album? Well actually they're not. Honestly, why don't you just drop it? Just let it go. Frankly, it's a bit embarrassing that you keep banging on about it.

Tom Morrello told The Pulse Of Radio this week: "Right now ... the band is not writing songs, the band is not in the studio. We get along famously and we all, you know, intend to do more Rage Against The Machine stuff in the future, but beyond sort of working out a concert this year, there's nothing else on the schedule".

BASEMENT JAXX TO RELEASE ATTACK THE BLOCK SOUNDTRACK
Hey, Basement Jaxx are back and have recorded the soundtrack to comedian and BBC 6music presenter Joe Cornish's debut feature film 'Attack The Block', which premiered in London last night. Will this soundtrack be released? Yes. When? I do not know.

Hmm, how can I distract you all from the fact that I don't have much information on this at all? I know, how about a SoundCloud stream of 'The Ends', which plays over the film's finale? Will that do? OK, here it is: soundcloud.com/basement-jaxx/basement-jaxx-the-ends

FIXERS MARK BEGINNING OF TOUR WITH NEW VIDEO
We like Fixers very much, and we particularly like their forthcoming debut EP, 'Here Comes 2001 So Let's All Head For The Sun', which is out next bloody week. Oh my god, you should so get it.

CITY SHOWCASE KICKS OFF TODAY, APP LAUNCHED
Central London new music festival City Showcase kicks off properly today after two pre-shows last night and the night before, with gigs due to take place in shops and venues across Central London over the next few days, plus workshops at the Regents Street Apple Store and Gibson Guitar Studio on Rathbone Street. One wristband for just £8 gets you into everything.

As previously reported, our friends at ThreeWeeks have published a special guide to City Showcase at bit.ly/k8L4wS. Festival organisers have also just launched an app for Android phone users with Viafo offering a guide to the festival and the bands playing, which you can get from bit.ly/mnXA3s.

The full festival runs until Saturday, though with extra gigs and workshops through to next Wednesday, check www.cityshowcase.co.uk for details.

GARDEN FESTIVAL, Petrčane, Zadar, Croatia, 6-13 Jul: Chali 2na of Jurassic 5 heads up the latest acts set to perform at this week-long Croatian cracker, with US electro duo No Regular Play, Death On The Balcony and Falling Up also supplementing the line-up. They join Phenomenal Handclap Band, Crazy P and Wolf And Lamb. www.thegardenfestival.eu

THE GREEN MAN FESTIVAL, Glanusk Park, Powys, Wales, 19-21 Aug: Organisers have confirmed that Laura Marling is to be a 'special guest' at this year's Green Man, which I assume means she gets some sort of special backstage privileges or something. Apparently not quite special enough to top the bill, she joins co-headliners Fleet Foxes, Iron & Wine and Explosions In The Sky at this freewheelin Welsh fest. www.greenman.net

T IN THE PARK, Balado, Scotland, 8-10 Jul: John Fratelli will appear solo for the first time at this Balado-based bash, with Scots rock icons Big Country, Idlewild's Roddy Woomble and burgeoning Glaswegian band Twin Atlantic also featuring highly amongst T's recent line-up additions. Arctic Monkeys, Coldplay, Pulp, Beady Eye and The Strokes lead the already hefty list of previously-announced bookings. www.tinthepark.com

CBI BOSS TO ADDRESS PPL AGM
Recording rights collecting society PPL has announced that John Cridland, Director General of the CBI, will address its AGM in London on 8 Jun.

Says PPL chief Fran Nevrkla: "I am delighted that John Cridland has agreed to be our keynote speaker at PPL's AGM this year. The CBI is a first class and very powerful organisation and therefore no government can afford to ignore its voice. PPL is delighted to play an active role in the CBI environment and John Cridland's passion and obvious determination make him the perfect executive to lead the CBI forward. It will be a real pleasure to hear John sharing with us his thoughts and experiences which I have no doubt will make a tremendous contribution towards ensuring that the PPL AGM this year is another memorable event".

BAIDU TESTING NEW FREE DOWNLOAD SERVICE
Chinese search engine Baidu has started testing a new music service called Baidu Ting, following an announcement in early April that it would launch a legit music offer this month.

Baidu, of course, has long been an enemy of the music industry because of its MP3 search service which made it very easy for Chinese web users to find illegal sources of music (some of which, it has been claimed, could only actually be accessed via the search engine). However in recent months - possibly as a result of Chinese authorities ramping up their copyright protection efforts - Baidu has been courting the Music Copyright Society Of China and the Chinese outposts of the major record companies to try and reach a deal on a licensed download service.

According to the Financial Times, the new service will be ad-funded and offer free downloads. Presumably the royalties paid to rights owners will be tiny, though any new income from a country where piracy has always been rampant, even pre-internet, will be welcomed by the global music industry. And given the size of the Chinese market and Baidu's dominance there, some might even be hopeful the new service could become a good earner.

SOUNDCLOUD LAUNCHES SITE FOR NEW TOOLS IN DEVELOPMENT
SoundCloud yesterday launched a new site called SoundCloud Labs which is "dedicated to experimental projects and features built on its API and developed by employees of the company". So that's fun. Users of the audio distribution platform will be able to access and use neat little proto-apps being developing on the Labs site should they wish to.

The firm's CTO Eric Wahlforss told CMU: "At SoundCloud we believe the web is too quiet, so devising new ideas to fill it with sound is what keeps our developer team awake at night. SoundCloud Labs allows these innovations to come to life, but can remain relatively easy to manage as they stay in their experimental form. While creating new opportunities for our users, we're also able to showcase the potential of our API and continue to encourage third-party developers to build their own apps on our platform".

SIMON COWELL TO TAKE NEW MUSIC SHOW GLOBAL
Simon Cowell has long harboured hopes of launching a new 'Top Of The Pops'-style music show, and was at one point even rumoured to be trying to buy the rights to the defunct BBC programme.

At a press conference ahead of the 'X-Factor' final in December last year, Cowell revealed that he was in talks with ITV about launching such a music show. The station subsequently confirmed that ideas were being discussed for the new programme, and that it could hit screens this year.

However, Cowell has now said that plans have grown in scope somewhat, delaying the project until at least next year. He told BBC Newsbeat: "It would need to be bigger than just one country. That's what we are thinking about but I don't think this is for now, it's for a year down the line".

BBC WORLDWIDE TO DISTRIBUTE RADIOHEAD KING OF LIMBS PERFORMANCE
BBC Worldwide has announced that it has signed a global deal to distribute a film of Radiohead performing their latest album, 'The King Of Limbs', in full. The programme will be a special edition of producer Nigel Godrich's music TV show, 'From The Basement'.

Although it has been confirmed that there has already been interest in purchasing the show in various territories, it's not clear if the show will be shown in the UK as yet, or on which channel. 'From The Basement' has previously aired on Sky Arts, though obviously a BBC channel now seems more likely. The band previously performed their 'Kid A' album in full on BBC Two for a special edition of 'Later... With Jools Holland' in 2001.

Salim Mukaddam, VP Music Television at BBC Worldwide told CMU: "It is a real honour to be working with Radiohead on this project. Radiohead are a band that rarely performs for television, but when they do, it's a moment to savour. There is already huge anticipation for this performance and we're delighted that they've decided to work with us at BBC Worldwide, confirming our position as market leaders in music television. As a fan I cannot wait to see these beautiful songs brought to life in this programme".

Courtyard Management's Bryce Edge added: "This will be Radiohead's first collaboration with BBC Worldwide and the band are excited at the prospect of having their first live performance of 'The King of Limbs' broadcast around the world. The band will be filmed and recorded by the 'From The Basement' team, which includes Nigel Godrich their long time producer, Dilly Gent ,who commissioned many of the memorable Radiohead videos and Grant Gee who filmed the Radiohead documentary 'Meeting People Is Easy'".

Filmed in HD, the programme will be available to broadcast from 1 Jul.

MARIAH CAREY AND NICK CANNON NAME TWINS
Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon have announced the names of their recently born twins. Well, CNN has announced them, but that's pretty much the same, right? Their son will apparently be called Moroccan Scott, Scott being Cannon's middle name and Morrocan being the name of a room in Carey's New York apartment (obviously). The boy's twin sister fares better, being named Monroe, after Marilyn.

Following the news channel's announcement, a spokesperson for the singer told CNN: "It has been a long, emotional journey for this family, and I couldn't be happier for all of them". This apparently confirms that these definitely are the names, in some way.

CMU Publisher and Business Editor Chris Cooke is available if you need independent industry comment for your media on any developments in the music business or music media, or the wider music world.

Chris regularly gives interviews on music business topics, and has done so for the likes of BBC News Channel, BBC World, BBC 5Live, Radio 4, Sky News, CNN and the Associated Press. Email chris@unlimitedmedia.co.uk or call 020 7099 9050 for more details.

CMU music business expertise is also available on a consulting basis via UnLimited Consulting, click here for more information, email chris@unlimitedmedia.co.uk to discuss a project.